The harassment of journalists variable measures if individual journalists are threatened, arrested, imprisoned, beaten or killed by government or powerful private actors while engaged in journalistic activities. For this variable higher values indicate less harassment of journalists. Under investigation are three of the countries which have seen major decreases in the Reporters without Borders’ rankings of press freedom this past year: El Salvador, Poland and Tajikistan.

The graph shows that the environment for journalists has improved in El Salvador and Poland since the early 1990s, probably as those countries have become increasingly democratic. Poland has remained at a low level of harassments; the recent drop indicated by Reporters without Boarder is related to a new law giving the government the right to appoint and fire broadcasting chiefs in public media. In Tajikistan, the harassment of journalists increased during the civil war between 1990 and 1997. The situation has since improved, but remains on a level where journalists are still strongly harassed. After the next V-Dem data update in 2017 we will be able to see the continued development for these countries and can better assess the situation for journalists indicated by Reporters without Borders.